Light emitting materials, such as phosphors, quantum dots and the like, generally have poor thermal conductivity. Hence, there can be a limit to the optical power (i.e. for excitation) that can be applied to the light emitting material, for example a laser illumination of a phosphor wheel (and the like), before the light emitting material becomes less efficient at converting light and/or fails. Such failure modes can include: light emitting materials, such as phosphor, becoming less efficient as they get hot; efficiency of the light emitting material being permanently damaged; and the light emitting material delaminating from a cooling plate and/or a heat sink and/or a backing plate. While a backing plate/cooling plate can remove some of the heat generated by the light emitting materials through conduction into the plate, and convection into air and/or another fluid, such systems are not efficient enough for high power/high brightness systems used in projectors.